RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

  • TX: Chick-fil-A employee accused of stealing $80,000 with mac & cheese scheme

    Source: New York Post

    “That’s one way to cook the books. A former Chick-fil-A employee was arrested for stealing $80,000 with a mac & cheese scheme at a Texas restaurant, police say. Keyshun Jones was fired from the store in Grapevine, outside Dallas, last November, but authorities say he would repeatedly slip back in, enter food orders on the register, and refund them to his personal credit card, Fox 4 reported. Jones was taken into custody on April 17 after allegedly ringing up 800 orders of mac and cheese, according to the outlet. Investigators began investigating the fromage fraud after the restaurant reported hundreds of phony refunds. Security camera footage shows Jones behind the counter carrying out the bogus transactions, prosecutors say.” (04/29/26)

    https://nypost.com/2026/04/29/us-news/chick-fil-a-employee-accused-of-stealing-80000-with-mac-cheese-scheme/

  • WV: Prosecutor drops case against woman accused of threatening Trump on TikTok

    Source: Fox News

    “The case against a West Virginia library worker charged earlier this year after allegedly posting a threat on social media pertaining to President Donald Trump has reportedly been dismissed. The prosecuting attorney in Jackson County lodged a motion to dismiss without prejudice on April 16, WOWK reported, noting that the filing indicates that the individual, Morgan Morrow, had not been appropriately Mirandized during interrogation. ‘The case has been dismissed. We believe Miss Morrow never should have been charged at all, and we’re glad this is over,’ the woman’s defense attorney, Mark Atkinson, noted, according to the outlet.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/prosecutor-drops-case-woman-accused-threatening-trump-tiktok

  • Elon Musk gets apology from California regulators as SpaceX lawsuit is settled

    Source: SFGate

    “California regulators apologized to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk this week as they settled a lawsuit that claimed a state agency showed political bias against the rocket company and its chief executive. As part of the settlement, the California Coastal Commission acknowledged its members made ‘improper’ statements about Musk’s political beliefs at a 2024 hearing on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch program. ‘The commission agrees that it may not consider irrelevant factors in performing its function and specifically agrees that it will not take into account the perceived political beliefs, political speech or labor practices of SpaceX or its officers in considering any regulatory action concerning SpaceX,’ the commission said in federal court documents filed Tuesday. SpaceX had sued the commission over its opposition to expanding the launch schedule for Falcon 9 rockets from the Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Southern California coast near Santa Barbara.” (04/29/26)

    https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/elon-musk-gets-an-apology-from-california-22232290.php

  • Rabbi found dismembered, stuffed in closet after being killed by Colombian gang

    Source: New York Post

    “A New York rabbi was found dismembered and stuffed inside a bloodstained wardrobe after he was attacked and murdered by Colombian gangbangers. Nachum Israel Eber’s mutilated remains were discovered inside the abandoned closet after it was dumped on a street in Bogota on Sunday — just days after his family reported him missing, local media reported. The 51-year-old father, who was a member of the Belz Hasidic community in Brooklyn’s Boro Park, had traveled to the South American country earlier this month to help advise a congregation of Catholics who had converted to Judaism. Authorities started searching for him after relatives in the Big Apple reported he had suddenly gone silent and stopped answering their calls. Surveillance video captured Eber leaving his Airbnb just after 9 p.m. April 21 before he vanished without a trace.” (04/30/26)

    https://nypost.com/2026/04/30/world-news/new-york-rabbi-found-dismembered-stuffed-in-closet-after-being-killed-by-colombian-gang/

  • ME: Mills suspends US Senate campaign

    Source: The Hill

    “Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced Thursday that she will suspend her Senate campaign over a lack of financial resources, clearing the way for primary rival Graham Platner. … Mills, who is term limited as governor, jumped into the race late last year to challenge incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R) as a top recruit from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) But Platner, a progressive political outsider, has been besting Mills in polling and fundraising five weeks out from the June 9 primary, despite various controversies around his campaign. An Emerson College Polling survey released last month showed Platner leading Mills by about 27 points in the Senate Democratic contest.” (04/30/26)

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5856803-janet-mills-suspends-senate-bid-maine

  • First direct US-Venezuela commercial flight in seven years is heading to Caracas

    Source: SFGate

    “The first direct commercial flight between the United States and Venezuela departed a bit early Thursday on its way to the capital of the South American country, seven years after the U.S. Homeland Security Department ordered an indefinite suspension, citing security concerns. The resumption of a nonstop commercial flight between the two countries comes months after the U.S. capture of then President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid on his residence in Caracas in early January. It also comes a month after the U.S. formally reopened its embassy in Caracas following the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Venezuela.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/the-first-direct-us-venezuela-commercial-flight-22233874.php

  • Brazil: Senate blocks Lula’s Supreme Court nominee, first rejection in 132 years

    Source: ABC News

    “Brazil’s Senate dealt a political blow to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday by rejecting his nomination to the Supreme Court, the first in more than 130 years and a sign that the veteran leader is not popular among many important lawmakers as he seeks reelection. Only 34 senators voted in favor of Jorge Messias, who has been Brazil’s solicitor-general since 2023 and a close legal adviser to Lula, while another 42 rejected his appointment. Many of the latter, including presidential hopeful Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, celebrated in the chambers after the result. Messias, who also worked for former president and Lula ally Dilma Rousseff, needed 41 votes to be approved.” (04/30/26)

    https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/brazils-senate-blocks-lulas-supreme-court-nominee-rejection-132516692

  • Trump says US studying troop cuts in Germany, as spat with Merz intensifies

    Source: BBC News [UK State Media]

    “The US is ‘studying and reviewing’ whether to reduce the thousands of troops it has stationed in Germany, President Donald Trump has announced via social media. His remarks came days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticised his approach to the war in Iran, suggesting that US had been ‘humiliated’ by Iranian negotiators. Trump said in a social media post late on Wednesday that a decision on troop numbers would be made ‘over the next short period of time. Then early on Thursday he rounded on Merz, saying he should ‘spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!).’ The BBC has reached out to the White House for comment. The US has a significant military presence in Germany, with more than 36,000 active duty troops assigned to bases across the country as of last December.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyplg23l30o

  • Appeals court rejects sexual predator’s request to hear defamation case appeal

    Source: United Press International

    “A full federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s request to rehear his appeal of an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of lying when he denied sexually abusing her. Trump has been fighting the multimillion-dollar penalty since a jury in 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll compensatory and punitive damages. The president is expected to ask the conservative-leaning Supreme Court to hear his case next. … The ruling marked the third and fourth times the full 2nd Circuit court had voted to deny en banc rehearing of rulings in this specific defamation case and fifth and sixth denial opinions it has issued involving both cases Carroll brought against Trump.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/04/30/Trump-Carroll-appeal/9141777523372/

  • Sheinbaum says Mexico will investigate US indictment alleging Sinaloa Cartel ties

    Source: SFGate

    “Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday that she wouldn’t let the U.S. meddle in the country’s affairs, and that her attorney general would investigate allegations from a New York court indictment accusing 10 Mexican current and former officials of working with the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic drugs. The indictment named a number of sitting officials in Sinaloa, including members of Sheinbaum’s progressive Morena party, fueling a political firestorm at a time when Sheinbaum has sought to offset U.S. pressures while appeasing her own base. Shortly after, Mexico’s government said that it had seen extradition request from the U.S. for 10 citizens, without naming them. The highest profile official implicated was Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, a top Morena official and close ally of Sheinbaum’s mentor and predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/sheinbaum-says-mexico-will-investigate-us-22234530.php

  • Press freedom worldwide falls to its lowest level in 25 years

    Source: Al Jazeeera [Qatari state media]

    “Freedom of the press around the world has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, according to the leading Paris-based press freedom NGO, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders. Every year, RSF publishes a World Press Freedom Index used to compare the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and media outlets in 180 countries. Its ranking uses a five-point scale to assess a country’s level of press freedom, ranging from ‘very serious’ to ‘good.’ For the first time since RSF started producing the index in 2002, more than half of the world’s countries fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom – ‘a clear sign that journalism is increasingly criminalised worldwide.'” (04/29/26)

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/30/global-press-freedom-falls-to-its-lowest-level-in-25-years

  • Report: SEIU racked up massive tab on swank DC hotel stay to battle Trump, and still lost

    Source: Fox News

    “The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) racked up a $1.2 million tab at D.C.’s five-star Salamander Hotel during a lobbying trip to oppose President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a new report from the Center for Union Facts (CUF) found. Social media posts show that SEIU members from around the country converged in Washington, D.C., between June 23 and June 29, 2025, to confront lawmakers and stage protests against the tax and spending cuts under consideration in Congress. Department of Labor disclosures logged on June 30, 2025, reveal that the union spent $1.2 million of members’ dues at the Salamander Hotel to cover a series of expenses labeled as ‘support for political activities.'” (04/30/26)

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/union-racked-up-massive-tab-swank-dc-hotel-stay-battle-trump-still-lost

  • Elon Musk gets combative on the stand during Day 2 of jury trial against OpenAI

    Source: NBC News

    “Elon Musk repeatedly fired back at OpenAI’s lawyer in a tense cross-examination during the second day of a tech trial that could help define the future of artificial intelligence. Musk testified as part of his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in which he accuses Altman of betraying the public by enriching himself through the AI company they founded together in 2015 as a nonprofit venture. ‘They can’t have it both ways,’ Musk said of OpenAI on the stand Wednesday. ‘They can’t have a nonprofit and free funding and the positive halo effect of being a nonprofit charity and also enrich themselves greatly.'” (04/29/26)

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-openai-sam-altman-trial-day-two-testimony-cross-examination-rcna342660


  • Righting a free oil market

    Source: Christian Science Monitor
    by staff

    “China tries to control exports of its rare earth minerals. The United States restricts certain exports of advanced computer chips. Even a few West African countries that dominate cocoa production often collude to control prices for the world’s chocolate-makers. Yet history teaches that a zero-sum mentality of resource manipulation or price-fixing among rivals often ends up pushing consumers to find creative ways to adjust. Cartels or monopolies then crack apart. The natural state of free competition in a market returns. And the notion that one can only get ahead if somebody else loses starts to recede. A good example of how mercantilism can melt away could be happening now. On Tuesday, one of the world’s top oil producers, the United Arab Emirates, announced it is quitting OPEC, along with the cartel’s stringent quota system among member states to rig global petroleum prices.” (04/29/26)

    https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0429/Righting-a-free-oil-market

  • The Border Wall Thrives, The Borderlands Don’t

    Source: TomDispatch
    by William deBuys

    “A leading preoccupation of the first Trump administration has all but slipped from view. Except when ostensible conservatives speak out against it, the major media have scarcely breathed a word on the subject. But it’s still there, 30 feet tall, aspirationally 1,952 miles long, obliterating habitats, dividing families, and sucking down public funds faster than a carrier-based air squadron. The media’s lack of attention is understandable. All-too-real wars of choice and metaphorical wars against science, universities, and the environment have dominated our airtime and the headlines. The rise of a new medievalism in medicine and the abrogation of international trade and security agreements have also won attention. Add to all of that a federal paramilitary kidnapping people, even from what still passes for the halls of justice, while murdering the occasional protester, and one’s journalistic cup runneth over.” (04/30/26)

    https://tomdispatch.com/the-never-ending-nightmare-of-the-border-wall/

  • Biden admin’s COVID vaccine cover-up and lies can no longer be denied

    Source: New York Post
    by Miranda Devine

    “As Dr. Anthony Fauci’s right-hand man, David Morens, was charged this week with conspiracy and destruction of federal records in the COVID-19 cover-up, another scandal over the vaccine was unfolding on Capitol Hill. According to a new Senate report and congressional testimony on Wednesday, Biden administration health officials deliberately ignored warning signs of possible serious reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, Bell’s palsy and sudden cardiac death. … when the FDA’s senior medical officer, Dr. Ana Szarfman, whose job was to monitor the vaccine data for warning signs, repeatedly raised the alarm throughout 2021, she was ignored, and emails show her colleagues tried to stop her from using a newer, more accurate statistical methodology to investigate the data.” (04/29/26)

    https://nypost.com/2026/04/29/opinion/miranda-devine-the-biden-admins-covid-vaccine-cover-up-and-lies-can-no-longer-be-denied-or-the-damage-it-caused/

  • The Next Indictment Should Be Against Greg Folkers

    Source: Brownstone Institute
    by staff

    “The Department of Justice does not need to wait for Dr. David Morens to turn on his colleagues; the evidence to charge the next key advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci is already in the public record. Greg Folkers was critical to the censorship operation at the heart of the Covid response. As Chief of Staff at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Folkers oversaw operations for the agency’s $6 billion budget and later sought to evade FOIA requests by conspiring with Dr. Morens and intentionally misspelling key phrases such as ‘g#in-of-function.'” (04/30/26)

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-next-indictment-should-be-against-greg-folkers/

  • Is DNC Keeping 2024 Autopsy Secret to Boost Kamala Harris?

    Source: Common Dreams
    by Norman Solomon

    “More than four months after Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin announced that he was breaking his promise to release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the decision remains highly controversial. Arguments swirl around whether it’s wise to proceed without public scrutiny of what went wrong during the last presidential campaign. But scant attention has focused on how hiding the autopsy provides an assist to Kamala Harris, who currently leads in polling of Democrats for the party’s 2028 nomination. As Harris eyes another run, she has a major stake in the DNC continuing to keep the autopsy under wraps — and has a lot to lose if it reaches the light of day. She must feel gratified when Martin defends keeping the autopsy secret, saying that the party should not ‘relitigate’ the 2024 election and claiming that release of the 200-page document would result in ‘navel-gazing.'” (04/30/26)

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/dnc-2024-autopsy-kamala-harris

  • The Oil Money Britain Wasted

    Source: Foundation for Economic Education
    by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes

    “The United Kingdom has oil in the North Sea. But it chose not to think about this resource in the long term, treating it as a temporary source of revenue rather than an opportunity to build lasting wealth. Already in the 1970s, it was clear to some economists that North Sea oil represented such a unique opportunity.” (04/30/26)

    https://fee.org/articles/the-oil-money-britain-wasted/

  • The Price of Moral Superpower: Sweden, Israel, and the Assassination of Folke Bernadotte

    Source: The Realist Review
    by Pelle Taylor

    “Over the course of a single century, Sweden lost all four of its greatest international figures to assassination or state violence: Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest; Folke Bernadotte, the first United Nations Mediator in Palestine; Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General; and Olof Palme, Cold War prime minister and voice for global peace and nuclear disarmament. In each case the trail points toward a foreign state actor. In each case Sweden looked away. It seems strange when Sweden itself has been so peaceful. That none of the deaths was ever satisfactorily resolved says a great deal about how the Swedish state failed to follow through on the consequences of being a so-called moral superpower.” (04/30/26)

    https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-price-of-moral-superpower-sweden

  • Licensed to speak? How NY’s AI bill gets it wrong.

    Source: Expression
    by John Coleman

    “A casual exchange with a chatbot can help someone understand a lease, think through a medical question, or navigate a personal issue. It can become specific and personal, even though people understand it isn’t a licensed professional. Yet even basic, exploratory conversations risk being labeled professional advice under a New York bill introduced this session. Senate Bill 7263 would prevent AI chatbots — defined broadly as any system that simulates ‘human-like conversation’ and provides information or services — from generating responses that would amount to the unlicensed practice of a profession like law, medicine, finance, or mental health, if that profession is normally provided by a human.” (04/30/26)

    https://expression.fire.org/p/licensed-to-speak-how-nys-ai-bill

  • Senator Thune’s duty is to voters, not his Senate colleagues

    Source: Fox News
    by David Marcus

    “Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., much like his mentor and predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell [R-KY] is a creature of that austere and august upper body of Congress who has completely forgotten his duty to Republican voters. It’s simple math. The Senate issue that the GOP electorate cares most about is passing the Save America Act, with its voter ID requirements and other election security measures, even if it means blowing up the filibuster. But GOP leadership insists that ending the 60-vote threshold and pushing this hyper-popular legislation through is simply impossible. Thune’s dilemma is whether his duty in this situation is to the institution of the Senate, whose rules and customs he seeks to preserve, or to the 95% of Republican voters shouting from the mountaintop to just pass the bill.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-sen-thunes-duty-voters-senate-colleagues

  • Throwing thousands more soldiers at Haiti will not solve this crisis

    Source: Responsible Statecraft
    by Dan M Ford & Joseph Brennan

    “But the UN and US never seem to learn. There have been numerous cycles of peacekeeping and police missions there. Here’s why they don’t work.” (04/30/26)

    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/haiti-gangs-un/

  • Israel’s New World Order: Nothing But the Threat of Endless Death

    Source: Antiwar.com
    by Andy Worthington

    “For the last two and a half years, the State of Israel has unilaterally — and with jaw-dropping illegality — reimagined warfare as a religiously-mandated existential struggle against alleged ‘forces of darkness’ in which there are no rules, and no sense of proportionality or restraint.” (04/30/26)

    https://original.antiwar.com/worthington/2026/04/29/israels-new-world-order-nothing-but-the-threat-of-endless-death/

  • Abundance Liberalism’s Statist Heart

    Source: Law & Liberty
    by Samuel Gregg

    “In one sense, the debate about abundance is about the future of the left in America. That is the political agenda underlying many of the economic ideas promoted by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance. Right now, the center-left in America is fixated on regulating everything to realize greater social justice in the economy. Abundance liberals like Klein and Thompson, however, want to shift the left’s attention towards the matter of how we can diminish many of the blockages that create artificial scarcities throughout the United States. The fight about abundance on the left, however, has great import for the right as well. The lurch toward economic nationalism and populist economics on the part of large segments of the right has made the possibility of deeper conversations and even possible alliances with abundanistas a live topic among classical liberals and fiscal conservatives.” (04/30/26)

    https://lawliberty.org/forum/abundance-liberalisms-statist-heart/

  • Controversial Pro-Israel PAC Launders Spending Through Another PAC

    Source: The American Prospect
    by David Dayen

    “A swing-seat congressional primary in Nebraska that’s already swarming with outside spending has a new twist with a familiar ring. Big money from a pro-Israel super PAC was en route to help its preferred candidate, but the ham-fisted attempt to conceal that support may backfire on its intended beneficiary, centrist New Democrat–endorsed candidate Denise Powell. Since mid-March, outside groups have spent $2.93 million (as of April 29) in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, supporting Powell and opposing state Sen. John Cavanaugh, a populist candidate with an extensive personal and family political history in the Omaha region that the district encompasses. Cavanaugh had been the early favorite in the race for the open seat vacated by Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) and won by Democrats in the last two presidential elections. The nearly $3 million already poured into the contest is an enormous amount for the relatively modest media market of Omaha and environs.” (04/30/26)

    https://prospect.org/2026/04/30/controversial-pro-israel-pac-launders-spending-powell-nebraska/

  • If “86” Is Illegal Speech, Nobody is Free

    Source: Persuasion
    Angel Eduardo & Aaron Terr

    “[T]he term ’86’ has been around since the 1930s, commonly used in restaurants and other contexts to mean ‘get rid of,’ ‘throw out,’ or ‘refuse service to.’ When combined with the number 47, referring to our current 47th president, the message becomes clear: Get rid of Trump. To assume that ’86’ means ‘kill’ or ‘assassinate’ is, at best, uncharitable. There are obvious ways to ‘get rid of’ a president without ending his life …. Even if they can somehow establish that ’86’ unambiguously means what they say it means, the prosecution still has their work cut out for them. … The law is clear that merely wishing for someone’s death is and should be protected speech, as distasteful as it may be, absent more evidence proving intent to cause harm.” (04/30/26)

    https://www.persuasion.community/p/you-cant-just-call-something-a-threat

  • May Day Politics Come to Classrooms

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Corey A DeAngelis

    “Chicago Public Schools has struck a deal with the city’s teachers’ union that turns students into political props. On May 1, a regular school day, children will participate in rallies and civic lessons before being bused to a union rally at Union Park. The agreement promises no retaliation for participants and for joint lobbying in Springfield. This deal does nothing to advance education. It simply enables the union to use children as pawns to demand more money from the very taxpayers funding the system.” (04/30/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/may-day-politics-come-to-classrooms/

  • Florida Republicans Are Gerrymandering. They Just Can’t Say So.

    Source: The Atlantic
    by Russell Berman

    “Florida Republicans have approved a new congressional map that could hand them as many as four House seats that Democrats currently hold. Their goal is straightforward and universally understood: They want to bolster the GOP’s majority in Congress and retake the lead in a yearlong, nationwide partisan gerrymandering showdown with Democrats. Good luck, however, getting top Republicans in the Sunshine State to openly admit that. In contrast with other states that have held lengthy and freewheeling public debates over redistricting during the past year, the drive to redraw maps in Florida has been marked by secrecy and obfuscation. Republicans can’t acknowledge the intent of their gerrymandering proposal, because the state constitution expressly prohibits partisan redistricting.” (04/29/26)

    https://archive.is/dGrJB

  • Nothing Scares Democrats More Than the Idea of Merit

    Source: Town Hall
    by Derek Hunter

    “The Supreme Court striking down Democrat racism in the drawing of Congressional districts set off a predictable wave of panic across the Left [sic], as the concept of having to make a case to voters who aren’t simply blindly loyal to the party began to sink in. … they absolutely refuse to have a conversation with an American who will not bow down to their left-wing [sic] agenda. Why? Because they can’t. There is no case to be made by the Left [sic] to normal people, so they refuse to and have created districts of the obedient to serve the party, as nothing scares the hell out of a Democrat more than having to compete for anything based on merit.” (04/30/26)

    https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/04/30/nothing-scares-democrats-more-than-the-idea-of-merit-n2675276

  • Foundation of the Revolution: Compliance Destroys Freedom

    Source: Tenth Amendment Center
    by Michael Boldin

    “American Independence was built on the understanding that compliance with arbitrary power isn’t safety – or peace. It’s surrender. That’s an essential, but long-forgotten foundation of the American Revolution: Laws made outside the limits of the constitution aren’t law at all. And they should be treated that way too.” (04/29/26)

    https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2026/04/29/foundation-of-the-revolution-compliance-destroys-freedom/

  • Trump CDC Pick Not Just about Vaccines or Elections

    Source: Independent Institute
    by K Lloyd Billingsley

    “Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control, comes billed as a ‘home run pick’ but may face pressure from the ‘vaccine-skeptical’ Robert F. Kennedy’s HHS. Kennedy ally Aaron Siri recalls that Schwartz, ‘with threat and force, mandated almost every major vaccine on civilians and military members’ and disciplined those who refused. Others see the Schwartz pick as a political move in the run-up to the midterms. While confirmation awaits, the people might look back to the way the CDC handled COVID in the election year of 2020.” (04/29/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/29/trump-cdc-pick-not-just-about-vaccines-or-elections/